The Tri-County Board of Health delayed its vote on whether to institute a mask mandate in area schools Monday night, after a wave of public comment and more than 90 minutes of deliberations.

The board took comment on a proposal it was considering: mandating masks in Douglas, Adams and Arapahoe counties for children 11 and under. After an hour and a half of public testimony, the board met in executive session. Board president Kaia Gallagher said the officials may return for a vote Monday evening but needed to deliberate. 

But 90 minutes later, Gallagher said the vote would be delayed until Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. and that the board wanted “to look more carefully over the motions being considered.” 

Ahead of its public comment session Monday night, the health department had received 10,000 comments, and more than 2,000 people signed up to speak during the meeting itself, Gallagher said. Each comment was confined to two minutes, after which the speaker’s mic was muted.

Though the board initially planned to pick speakers at random, it ultimately chose to alternate between supporters and opponents of the mask proposal. That proved more difficult near the end of the meeting, as mask opponents filled the queue as the board looked for mask supporters. 

As a result, support and opposition – at least as communicated during public comment – was evenly split. Both sides claimed that the science was on their side: Depending on the speaker, masks either worked well or were worthless.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Public Health and Environment recommends masks in schools. A collection of studies provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all pointed to the efficacy of masks. A Chinese study found masks reduced secondary transmission within households by 79%, while a review of Thailand contact tracing findings determined that mask wearers had a 70% reduced chance of contracting the disease. 

“At least 10 studies have confirmed the benefit of universal masking in community level analyses: in a unified hospital system, a German city, two U.S. states, a panel of 15 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., as well as both Canada and the U.S. nationally,” the CDC wrote. “Each analysis demonstrated that, following directives from organizational and political leadership for universal masking, new infections fell significantly. Two of these studies and an additional analysis of data from 200 countries that included the U.S. also demonstrated reductions in mortality.”

The names of the speakers at Monday’s meeting were said aloud but not spelled.

Multiple medical professionals spoke up in support of masks (one opponent accused the board of “stacking the deck” with doctors). One, a pediatric critical care physician, urged the board to adopt a mandate “before our students become my patients.”

Another woman with an elementary-aged child in Douglas County School District, which does not require masks, said her daughter had been in school five days before she was exposed to COVID-19. She said her child’s school had minimal mask wearing and no social distancing in the cafeteria. Many pointed to the “clear” science that indicates masks are effective at blunting disease spread.

But opponents charged the board with violating their freedom. One woman accused officials of “abusing” children by requiring they wear masks. Others said that mask-wearing was negatively impacting their children’s mental well-being. At least two called on parents to take their kids out of school for a week in October to alter school districts’ attendance, and, thus, funding numbers.

Many pointed to the minimal adverse outcomes the disease has had on children: Gov. Jared Polis said last week that seven elementary school-aged children were currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and pediatric deaths nationwide have paled in comparison to mortality among older people.

A review of mortality and cases conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that “among states reporting, children were 0.00%-0.25% of all COVID-19 deaths, and seven states reported zero child deaths. In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.” But amid the delta variant’s recent surge, providers in some hot-spot states have reported a spike in pediatric cases. 

Several urged the board to let parents decide whether their children should be masked, rather than requiring it. 

“When does it end?” another woman asked. “Do we mask our children for the flu going forward? What about the common cold? When does it stop? Where is the line? Or do we continue to mask our kids perpetually for no reason?”

The delta variant, which is now dominant nationwide and in Colorado, has been found to be more transmissible than either the flu or the common cold, as well as Ebola and smallpox. It is as contagious, the CDC has said, as chickenpox.